The inventive concepts described herein generally relate to magnetic memory devices and/or to methods of forming magnetic memory devices.
As electronic devices trend toward high speed and low power consumption, high-speed read/write operations and low operating voltages are required for semiconductor memory devices incorporated therein. In order to meet the above requirement, magnetic memory devices have been proposed as semiconductor memory devices. Since magnetic memory devices may operate at high speed and have nonvolatile characteristics, they have attracted considerable attention as the next-generation memory devices.
A magnetic memory device may include a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). The magnetic tunnel junction may include two magnetic structures and a tunnel barrier layer disposed therebetween. The resistance of the magnetic tunnel junction may vary depending on magnetization directions of the two magnetic structures. For example, when magnetization directions of two magnetic structures are anti-parallel to each other, a magnetic tunnel junction may have a relatively high resistance. When magnetization directions of two magnetic structures are parallel to each other, a magnetic junction tunnel may have a relatively low resistance. A magnetic memory device may write/read data using the resistance difference between the high resistance and the low resistance of the magnetic junction tunnel.
With the remarkable advance in electronic industry, there is an increasing demand for high density and/or low power consumption of magnetic memory devices. Accordingly, many studies have been conducted to meet these demands.